When news of Scottie Scheffler’s shocking arrest broke last month, his stunned family was watching at home with the rest of the sports world.
After Scottie, 27, was arrested before his second round at the PGA Championship on May 17, his father, Scott Scheffler, recalled staring motionless at a text message on his phone.
“It said, ‘Scottie Scheffler has been detained,’” Scott told The Dallas Morning News in a story published Tuesday, June 11. “You say to yourself, ‘What is this? Where is this coming from?’”
When he turned on ESPN in those early morning hours, a very fuzzy picture began coming together.
“And then I look and there’s video,” Scott continued. “And it’s raining. And it’s dark. And I’m like, ‘This is real.’”
Scott and his wife, Diane, Scottie’s mother, remembered seeing their son, the No. 1 golfer in the world, hauled away in handcuffs. Diane texted her son, “Are you OK?”
After a frenzied period of no communication with Scottie, they finally touched base.
“Eventually Scottie was able to call me,” Scott said. “I told him, ‘These are things in life that, unfortunately, at the moment, you cannot control, but you have to be the person that you are. Utmost respect. Please and thank you.’”
In the aftermath, Scottie’s coach Randy Smith, who has been with Scottie since he was 7, was in awe of Scott and Diane’s poise under pressure. Smith said “a lot of parents in that case would lose their mind.” He remembered Scott telling his son, “Just be like you always are. Be you. Be you.”
The entire ordeal was bewildering to Scottie, as Randy recalled him saying from jail, “I’m doing all right, just a little confused, but I can’t stop shaking.”
Scottie was arrested after trying to maneuver his way into Louisville’s Valhalla Golf Club where, just before, a man had been struck and killed by a shuttle bus around 5 a.m. ET.
He was booked, a now-infamous mugshot was taken and Scottie was charged with second-degree assault of a police officer, third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving and disregarding traffic signals from an officer directing traffic after an incident with police.
In a statement after he was released from prison that morning, Scottie said it was all “a big misunderstanding.”
All charges against Scottie were dropped on May 29, citing insufficient evidence, and the golfer emphasized that he was ready to “put the incident behind me.”
Scottie’s humility and grace were shared, perhaps unsurprisingly, by the family members who were so frantic on that fateful morning.
“Misunderstandings happen all the time, everywhere,” his mother, Diane, said. “If people could try to talk to each other, the whole world, it would help.”
